Chanel: Her Life - Hardcover

by Justine Picardie (Text by (Art/Photo Books)), Karl Lagerfeld (Photographer)

As Justine Picardie shows in this elegant book, the figure who introduced simplicity into women's wardrobes was far from simple ... the Chanel uncovered by Picardie is a storyteller. She spun her own myth, but each of her creations was a story as well and each contains a story. -Frances Wilson, The Telegraph

This is the long-awaited reprint of Justine Picardie's acclaimed 2010 illustrated biography of Coco Chanel (1883-1971), one of the 20th century's most captivating personalities and a defining figure in fashion history. Whoever attempts to understand Chanel's life is confronted by countless myths, half-truths and rumors. In this book Picardie discovers the woman behind the legend, and tells Chanel's story with a flair and clarity of which Coco herself would approve. Chanel: Her Life explores every facet of Chanel's universe: her fascinating private life as well as the famous icons of her fashion empire: the tweed jacket, the little black dress, N 5 perfume, the pearls, the camellia.

The result is a comprehensive biography that reveals Chanel's style to be the outcome of rigorous elegance, resolute self-belief and a determinedly unconventional stance. Picardie was granted access to Chanel's archives and is the first author to have examined previously undiscovered private archives in the United Kingdom and France; and this unique knowledge underpins Chanel: Her Life. The book, designed and with drawings by Karl Lagerfeld, and with a new foreword by Picardie celebrating Lagerfeld's extraordinary time at the House of Chanel, is the definitive biography of the tantalizingly elusive Coco Chanel.

Editor-in-chief of Harper's Bazaar UK and Town & Country UK, Justine Picardie (born 1961) is an acclaimed British novelist, fashion writer and biographer. Her books include If the Spirit Moves You (2001), Wish I May (2004), Daphne (2008) and Inge Morath: On Style (2016). Her 2010 biography of Coco Chanel was shortlisted for the Galaxy National Book Awards.